Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds said of Missouri, "Our bad years are better than their good years." / Erich Schlegel, Getty Images

by Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY Sports

by Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY Sports

The University of Texas athletic department is "poised for the future," university athletic director DeLoss Dodds said to Kirk Bohls of the Austin-American Statesman.

That's good to hear, seeing that the school's athletic programs â?? and not just the football team, which has hit on hard times â?? are experiencing an NCAA championship drought of near-historic proportions.

Said Dodds, "We're going to have good years again. Our bad years are not that bad. Take a school like Missouri. Our bad years are better than their good years. But we've created a standard."

This is the oldest, cheapest, most hoity-toity statement one could possibly use â?? our worst day is better than your best day, basically. And that it's thrown at Missouri, a former Big 12 rival which left for the SEC in 2012, makes Dodds' comment all the more childish.

Besides, the last time these two teams met: Missouri 17, Texas 5. Texas A&M and Missouri have put Texas and the Big 12 firmly in their rearview mirror; UT can't seem to do the same.

(It's like the time former Colorado coach Dan Hawkins, then 0-5 to start the 2006 season, said at a pep rally that "your worst day as a Buff is better than your best day as a Husker.")

"Football is fine," Dodds said to Bohls. "Nine wins are not the end of the world. But we want 13 wins."

Texas might also want to beat Oklahoma â?? the Sooners have won three in a row over the Longhorns, the final two by a combined score of 118-38. Asked if Brown needs to beat OU in 2013 to save his job, Dodds replied, "Oh, we don't think that way."

Said Dodds:

"Next year we will be having a different conversation. Look at the programs that made changes: Lloyd Carr at Michigan, Phil Fulmer at Tennessee, R.C. Slocum at A&M. They all had great runs and then two or three average years and have been through two or three coaches since. Mack's our coach. He's the best person we can have in that position."